


Duplicity

by Onus_Probandi



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: But 2B could do better, But yeah don't fuck your girlfriend's clone, Death, F/M, Genderbends again, He can't deal, I haven't taken my pills today so this is some crazy shit, I'm not gonna say dub con, It's the obvious endgame people, Thanks to axichan for editing btw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:35:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13161294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onus_Probandi/pseuds/Onus_Probandi
Summary: 2B experiences pain in varying degrees.





	Duplicity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AxiomAutomata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxiomAutomata/gifts).



Duplicity

The rain pours down on his bare head and he finds it a fitting day in all for a funeral. The weather seems to have read his heart, the sky as broken and raging as the turmoil and anger inside of his chest. He finds it worse to deal with than the sobs and the constant realizations of pain and suffering that cause his heart to swell in his ribs. But she would have liked today. A bit of a child in mentality, she would kick at puddles with neon blue rain boots dotted with kittens holding umbrellas, cackling as if her deeds were shockingly heinous.

Those boots have been packed up and sent back to her mother, along with twenty years of incomplete collections of random bits. All dropped in a box with no regard of her obsessive ordering systems.

He wishes he had taken even a small something, because now, while he as some of her things from when she left them in his home, he will always need more.

No amount of  _ things  _ will ever fill the void that threatens to swallow him up. And he knows this, he knows what they say to those in grief.

He sighs, pulls open the doors of the chapel and steps inside, flanked by two other members of YoRHa. 

21O wasn't the religious type, deeming it unnecessary to go through the motions of weekly prayers and meetings now that her daughter was away from home. YoRHa had been more than willing to give her daughter the full militant send-off she deserved, yet 21O had insisted on burying her in the same cemetery as her father.

The traditional incense fills the halls and amphitheatre with scented smoke and two sticks of fragrant sorrow frame each vertical side of her portrait. She gives him a warm smile frozen in time, laced up in crisp black formals. The cap adorning her hair never really suited her, but she always said it made her feel important.

God, she loved being a soldier. And she died doing what she loved.

“2B…” 21O stands at the end of the hall, dressed in mourning robes, clutching a wad of crumpled tissues and a portrait of her daughter to her chest. Her voice cracks in all the places, her eyes bloodshot and haggard. She was a proud woman, bent under by the weight of loss. 

She gives him a pathetic look, fingers curling around the picture frame. Her heart goes out to the one person in the world that shares her pain, that feels the void just as she does.

And then she sees the two behind him.

Her eyes narrow. “What is IR doing here?” She hissed out the abbreviation of Internal Recovery, a feeling of dread sinking into her gut.

2B opens his mouth to speak, realizes he can't and swallows before trying again. 

“21O…they’re here for her...body. You know why.”

She shakes her head and body, violently. “N-no. No! I told you bastards I'm not letting you do that!” Her voice comes out as a shrill cry, a panicked animal trapped in a corner. 

“21O, please, you don't have a choice.”

“Fuck you.” She spits and turns her ire to the IR YoRHa. “You put my daughter on a slab of ice for three weeks, trying to prolong your time and you come here at her  _ funeral,  _ and you take her away from me?! Go to hell, go right to hell.”

He's about to speak again when the first IR drone steps forward. “Ma'am, we complied with your request to hold services for her, but now that she has been exposed to the elements, we are running short on time. We have been brought here to extract her.”

“Oh, you showed me basic human dignity before tearing it away.” 21O scoffed, “how thoughtful.”

The second one stepped up. “Ma'am, if you refuse to cooperate, then you will be detained.”

Her eyes widen in realization and her gaze lands on 2B.

“Y-you're here to arrest me.”

He can't do this, he can't, he can't, he can't.

“...yes…” he mutters, curling his hands into fists as she shouts expletives at him.

“I thought you loved her, you backstabbing son of a bitch! But a little cloning and you'll get your fuck toy back, is that it?” Her voice drips with malice and hate, the anger she felt toward the one who killed her shifting unto him.

Her accusations burn into his skin, eating away at his flesh. He's always loved her and he always will.

This isn't easy for him. None of it is. 9S is probably furious that they're arguing and he…

He lets the IR pass him by, 21O’s protests and tears their only resistance.

She doesn't want this and neither does he, but unlike her he knows this needs to happen. Prolonging the suffering will just make it worse.

He ducks past her, into the scented dome of the amphitheater where 9S’ body lies in wake. Even from a distance, he can tell that they've stitched up the wound to her chest, dusted her with blush and other makeup she never wore in life, and dressed her in her uniform, hair laid across her shoulder.

It hits him hard again, and his heart thuds slowly against his ribs, breath choked in his throat. He freezes in place as tears threaten to break the dam of emotions he's been holding back since the pencil thin spear of a Nightmare pierced her heart ten feet from his face.

It's no solace when they tell him it was painless.

He thaws his legs and walks over to her, ever so slowly as if not to wake her. There's too much suffering in his heart, but he reaches down to slowly brush her cheek with his gloved thumb. She's cold, or at least he thinks she is. From what he's heard, she's been inside of a cryostasis tube for the better part of the week, her body dropped to a temperature that would preserve her tissues.

A soft whimper escapes him and he can feel the pressure of tears behind his eyes. She looks at peace, eyes closed and lips slightly parted in rigor. He shuts his eyes against this horror and he can see her, exhausted from another late night of planning, asleep on the couch with her pen still between her fingers. She had wanted to ensure her passage into the sergeant circle, wanting to guarantee her continued place at his side.

He tears his hand away from her skin, the memories too hot and fast and bright as if he was staring into the center of the sun. 

21O doesn't say anything, letting the bitter disgust etch its way into her face as they carry her daughter out of the amphitheater on a gurney, a simple white sheet draped over her body to protect the dignity of the death she had suffered.

2B stops as he passes her in the hall, knowing that Nines would want him to at least explain to her why he's going against everything he believed in.

“I... _ can't _ let her die. Not like this.”

21O flashes those eyes, the same eyes 9S had in the same expression she had. Blue stars bore into his skull with passion and fury, mouth set in a thin, hard line. She refuses to cry in front of him, and he knows his father will face her unbridled rage.

This is her last kindness.

He expects her storm, needs it even. In a sick way, it reminds him of 9S anger and her punishment when he made the mistake of crossing her.

“Get  _ out _ .”

It's a blow to the gut and he doesn't know how many more he can take.


End file.
